1000------------------------NL2------------------------Beginner
1200------------------------NL5------------------------Weak Amateur
1400------------------------ NL10------------------------Weak club player
1600------------------------NL25------------------------club player
1800------------------------NL50------------------------Strong club player
2000------------------------NL100------------------------Very strong club player
2100------------------------1/2------------------------Expert
2200------------------------2/5------------------------Titled player
2300------------------------5/10------------------------Candidate Master
2400------------------------10/20------------------------International Master
2500------------------------20/50------------------------Grandmaster
2600------------------------50/100------------------------Strong Active Grandmaster
2700------------------------100/200------------------------Top 50 in the world
2800+-----------------------200/400------------------------Best players of all time

I haven't played poker is almost 10 years but limits seem low. Let's say I'd be a Nl5 player if I came back with no extra work. I imagine I could (and this may just be delusional) beat NL50 after a few months of coaching but no way could I have gone from 1200->1800 after a few months of coaching after a 10 year layoff.

ouch , i was proud of my 1400 on chess.com lol. i only play for fun though i havent looked at training vids or opening just intuition and rep.

im kinda just doing an experiment as well i wanna see how high i can get my elo without study or any help of any kind. what do you guys think is possible as far as just learning from exp. because technically you are learning by playing people better than you.

You've got to put in a HELL of a lot of volume to beat any level. I don't think it's fair to say you've beaten a level until you've mad at least 20BI's of the NEXT level, this usually takes well over 50k hands, assuming you're winning at a realistic winrate for most people (4BB/100).

In chess, most people don't improve because they don't train - they don't understand where to focus their efforts towards improvement.

Just playing ****loads of chess doesn't make you better at chess (ESPECIALLY short time limits - 5mins and under).

You have to have a structured, organised approach to the game. (Focussing on themed tactics, positional concepts, endgame technique and a solid, low-theory opening repertoire).

I'm pretty sure I could take a 1200 player and turn them into an 1800, if they were willing to put the work in - which I reckon would translate as roughly the same time investment as playing 200k hands at the microstakes.

ouch , i was proud of my 1400 on chess.com lol. i only play for fun though i havent looked at training vids or opening just intuition and rep.

im kinda just doing an experiment as well i wanna see how high i can get my elo without study or any help of any kind. what do you guys think is possible as far as just learning from exp. because technically you are learning by playing people better than you.

Interesting idea.

I think you could get reasonably far by playing lots of LONG TIME CONTROL games, especially against players much stronger than yourself.

However I also think there's a limit to how far you could get. Perhaps 1600-1700.

After people start getting to 1800, it becomes important to have a well structured opening repertoire, because you can get a losing position without your opponent playing any original moves himself.

At that level, games tend to stop being decided by huge tactical blunders and instead strategical understanding and positional thinking become more important.

I think it would be very difficult to progress beyond that level without learning some openings, training your tactical awareness systematically, and trying to understand positional and strategic themes.

You would stop learning as soon as you were unable to comprehend the ideas being used against you - it's easy to see why you lost when you missed some tactic that caused you to lose material, it's much much more difficult to understand how a superior opponent was able to put you in a positional bind and simplify to a technically winning ending, or to see why you fell victim to a sophisticated attack on the kingside, due to a particular type of strategic imbalance.

This comparison doesn't work. Nosebleeds are usually softer than mid-high and high stakes because when the stakes are so high, it takes a spot for the game to run in the first place. It's not like it was in 2004. And even in reg wars, the same people playing 25/50 are those that would occasionally battle 100/200 with seats open (usually waiting for a rec). The best NL players in the world currently log a lot of volume at 25/50 on Stars. And of course nosebleed live games are all softer than those by a good margin.

The site also matters a bunch and probably swings that comparison by many hundred elo, depending. In 2018, the analogues to chess will be snipped off at both ends. It is still a safe bet that no one is as good at NLHE as super GMs (even by the old definition: >2600) are at chess. On the other side of the coin, beating even nanostakes on a tough site requires a surprisingly high level of skill, especially due to the rake. No winning players are "<1400" in 2018. The gaps between limits on that list are much too high: 50 NL isn't ever going to be that much softer than 100 NL. (1800 -> 2000 in chess is a huge qualitative leap.)

This comparison doesn't work. Nosebleeds are usually softer than mid-high and high stakes because when the stakes are so high, it takes a spot for the game to run in the first place. It's not like it was in 2004. And even in reg wars, the same people playing 25/50 are those that would occasionally battle 100/200 with seats open (usually waiting for a rec). The best NL players in the world currently log a lot of volume at 25/50 on Stars. And of course nosebleed live games are all softer than those by a good margin.

The site also matters a bunch and probably swings that comparison by many hundred elo, depending. In 2018, the analogues to chess will be snipped off at both ends. It is still a safe bet that no one is as good at NLHE as super GMs (even by the old definition: >2600) are at chess. On the other side of the coin, beating even nanostakes on a tough site requires a surprisingly high level of skill, especially due to the rake. No winning players are "<1400" in 2018. The gaps between limits on that list are much too high: 50 NL isn't ever going to be that much softer than 100 NL. (1800 -> 2000 in chess is a huge qualitative leap.)

This is exactly the kind of response that I was looking for - I agree with your analysis. (my list was for the sake of argument, and somewhat artificial).

You say that the nosebleeds are actually softer than the mid-high stakes because the games don't run without a spot, but if you control for the spot (I.e remove massive fish from the pool), wouldn't you be left with a bunch of players who crushed mid-highstakes?

I guess what i'm trying to do is understand the level of skill that a high stakes endboss has relative to a GM.

I suppose the fact that one's financial situation outside of poker contributes as much to the stakes that one plays as one's skill, whereas this isn't the case in chess though...

The percentage of players above some limit would be direct math, not a personal estimation.

The talents are different (deep intuitive in chess -- basically tactics -- and feel in poker -- compares to tactics). Learning the technical stuff is trivial and matters only for beginners and after that when the talent is there. Maybe you can argue that getting a higher IQ is only a matter of technique.

If you observe the poker games at different limits, you see a lot of high-level technique at high limits but not at medium limits like 1/2 that still ranks somewhere in the nitting and goosing category. Just see some Russians and so moving chips around between themselves and that shows you the nit and then see some gooses and that shows you the reckless immature part.

PLO25 (zoom) at stars is the first "tough" game as it is an aggro game but the players are mostly not mature good player. See the 50 limit and you see an improvement in solid play (I am not talking about some plo50 party fish). That goes up to 200 like that (in NLH200 too, though I haven't taken a look during the last year or two other than seeing also the Snowies playing there) where you see the best play of these limits; there being something not optimal below it, but the games are still good at 200 and one needs to lack technique and feel (talent) if one is not able to beat it. I don't know what level that is in chess but there are plenty nits at 1500 (blitz at my place) already so that's pretty mature already, so maybe 50 or 100 level after eliminating the fishes, but that's not math based.

I don't all know about chess as I don't have the talent for it. I played at freechess.org and moved to average blitz level (1450) in a year or two and haven't made significant progress ever since and my technique is mature; would beat plo200 online. Openings, endgames, tactics, positional/strategy, all mostly insignificant at that point. I could write good books here for people interested of most easily learning all they need to learn to beat the plo200 of chess if they have the talent for it.

200 is still a common level in poker, and the rating needed maybe like 1600, so the limits, IMO, are not that different at 100 and 200 online (some disagree but they are wrong, including JNandez who basically plays 500+ and lost at Party50, as he played it wrong), so 1500 (50) 1600 (100 to 200), as my opinion but it is mostly in talent how one sees it, though the optimal technique to win there is not high level.

The lowest rated in chess are beginners so the average rating is just average as so; there are also mostly the regs online or higher that are higher rated, so I don't know what to think about the average rating other than saying that it might be weaker than it looks because of the beginners (the fish), when it comes to the chess population (but not when it comes to all the people on this planet). The fish doesn't play above 1450 in chess but they do play above 25 in poker.

Training in poker is also the same as training in chess and what counts is talent and if you have it, you just need to play and use it to move up; training helps much less and is not real life, the game being something else and one needs to play most levels with talent, not with optimal strategy and positional play, that help only as much as it does, the rest being up to talent (specific IQ).

1000------------------------NL2------------------------Beginner
1200------------------------NL5------------------------Weak Amateur
1400------------------------ NL10------------------------Weak club player
1600------------------------NL25------------------------club player
1800------------------------NL50------------------------Strong club player
2000------------------------NL100------------------------Very strong club player
2100------------------------1/2------------------------Expert
2200------------------------2/5------------------------Titled player
2300------------------------5/10------------------------Candidate Master
2400------------------------10/20------------------------International Master
2500------------------------20/50------------------------Grandmaster
2600------------------------50/100------------------------Strong Active Grandmaster
2700------------------------100/200------------------------Top 50 in the world
2800+-----------------------200/400------------------------Best players of all time

So limit is higher rated than no limit???????????????? Doesn't make sense...